cookie monster cupcakes

Last year for my son Micah's birthday, I made him Elmo cupcakes because he absolutely loved Elmo at the time. This year for his third birthday, I decided to make him Cookie Monster cupcakes, because he just loves to eat!!!

I made the same chocolate cupcakes as I did last year, and piped Cookie Monsters details with cream cheese frosting. I started by using a large round tip to pipe white frosting into two eyes...

And then a #3 tip with black frosting to pipe his crazy eyeballs.

Next I used the same #3 tip to pipe the mouth (and filled it in with the same tip).

And finally, I used a #18 star tip with blue frosting to pipe Cookie Monster's fur!

Isn't he cute?!

And of course, Cookie Monster wouldn't be complete without a cookie hanging out of his mouth! (I used mini chips ahoy, instead of baking my own, just to save time!)

 Happy happy birthday, my little cookie monster!

elmo cupcakes

My youngest baby is obsessed with Elmo. To the point where he has to sleep with two Elmo dolls every night. "Two ... Ehmo", he says, if you only hand him one doll. And every morning he has to watch Elmo before school. And if there is a scene that Elmo is not in, he will repeatedly say "Ehmo ... Ehmo ... Ehmo ..." until I fast forward to a scene that Elmo is in. That is how much he loves Elmo.

So, in addition to the rainbow fruits layer cake that I made for his 2nd birthday this year, I also *had* to make Elmo cupcakes for his class party at daycare! I've made Elmo goodies for my other two kids in the past - Elmo cookies, Elmo cake, and also these Elmo cupcakes where I piped Elmo cupcake toppers with royal icing ahead of time. Even an Elmo ice cream cake (wow, was that really 4 years ago?!). This time I wanted to pipe Elmo directly on the cupcake, and I couldn't wait for Micah to see!

I started by making chocolate cupcakes (recipe in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!). Once baked and cooled, I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting, and piped Elmo's eyes with a large round tip.

Next I used orange frosting to pipe his nose, also using a large round tip.

Next I piped the eyeballs and mouth with black frosting, using a small round tip (Wilton tip #3).

And finally, I filled in his face with red frosting using a medium star tip (Wilton #16).

Two dozen cupcakes later, I was done!

I couldn't wait to see the look on Micah's face when he saw them!

Here are some of the photos I took on my phone to document his Elmo cupcake encounter :)

And finally, a video so you can see how happy he was to be eating his Elmo cupcake :)

Happy birthday my little Micah! Love you so much!!!

elmo cake

Even though we didn't have a birthday party for my daughter Melodie's second birthday, I still wanted to make her a cake, to match the cookies and cupcakes that I made for her celebration at daycare.  So I made a cake in the shape of Elmo's face!

I wanted to try something other than chocolate cake, and decided to make a brown sugar cake from Martha's "Cupcakes" book.  I divided the batter in half and used this Elmo cake pan to bake each half of the batter, one half at a time.

Once both cakes were baked and cooled, I began making the filling.  Since I knew that the brown sugar cake was going to be pretty sweet, I wanted the filling to be light. so I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting, and then lightened it with a batch of freshly whipped cream.

For the frosting, I made a batch of cream cheese buttercream (basically a batch of buttercream frosting with a stick on cream cheese added to it).  Then after frosting Elmo's eyes with the white frosting using an offset spatula, I divided the rest of the frosting it into portions, and colored the them red, orange, and black.  Then I filled in Elmo's eyeballs and mouth with black frosting using a piping bag fitted with a #5 tip.  Next was Elmo's face with red frosting using a piping bag fitted with a star tip, and finally Elmo's nose with orange frosting using the offset spatula.

Melodie loved her Elmo cake!  Although I thought it was a little too sweet.  Also, the next time I make an Elmo cake, I think I'd flatten out the piping on the eyes and the mouth.

And now I'll leave you with a picture of the birthday girl, eating her cake!

elmo cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese whipped cream frosting

My last post was about the Elmo cookie favors that I made for my daughter's birthday party at daycare, so I also wanted to show you the Elmo cupcakes that I made to go with them!  I had made Elmo cupcakes a few years ago for my son's third birthday - I had used plastic Elmo rings as cupcake toppers, but this time I wanted to make everything edible!

I started by making chocolate cupcakes - mini cupcakes for the kids, and regular cupcakes for the teachers.

For the frosting, I wanted something light and airy, so I made a batch of cream cheese frosting, and then a batch of whipped cream, and then lightened the frosting by folding in the whipped cream.  Then I piped the frosting on with a large closed-star tip, to create a "whipped cream" effect.

The final touch was topping the cupcakes with Elmo toppers that I had made previously by piping them with royal icing on waxed paper - the same method I used for the Superman cupcakes for my son's birthday.

A few notes about using this technique:

* Give the royal icing at least 2 days to dry.

* Be very careful when peeling the dried royal icing off of the waxed paper, as they are very fragile and break easily.  I would almost describe it as "peeling the waxed paper off of the toppers" rather than peeling the toppers from the waxed paper.

* Place your royal icing toppers on top of your cupcakes the day you are serving your cupcakes.  If you leave them on overnight, the toppers may wilt and the colors may bleed onto your frosting (not very attractive when black royal icing bleeds onto white frosting!)

Happy Birthday, my Melodie!

*** Update: you can also find the Elmo cake that I made for her here!

elmo cookies

My daughter Melodie's turned two the week before Christmas, but I didn't have time to plan a party (I feel so guilty - I didn't have time to plan one last year either!).  However, we had a small party for her at daycare.  And since I did Hello Kitty last year, this year I decided to do her second favorite character - Elmo!

I made Elmo cupcakes for the party (post to come later), and for the favors I made Elmo cookies.  I used this Elmo cookie cutter, and my favorite homemade sugar cookie and royal icing recipes (but you could of course use store bought).

After the cookies were baked and cooled, I used black royal icing to pipe the outlines for Elmo's eyes, nose, and face.  When the outlines had dried, I filled in the face with various colors of royal icing - red for the face, orange for the nose, black for the mouth, and white for the eyes.  

And the finishing touch was adding Elmo's eyeballs.

As always, I wrapped the cookies cellophane bags tied with raffia and custom favor tags.

Melodie loved them!  And so did all the kids (and teachers) in her class!  More to come on the other Elmo goodies that Melodie enjoyed on her birthday!

*** Update: I also made Elmo cupcakes and an Elmo cake!  You can cupcakes here, and the cake here!

elmo cupcakes and elmo ice cream cake

I can't believe my little boy Matthew turned four today!  Last year I made Cars cupcakes for this third birthday, and the year before that I made these Elmo cupcakes for his second birthday (please excuse the poor lighting on these old pictures!).

I made two dozen of these and served them at his preschool birthday party - chocolate cupcakes using my favorite homemade chocolate cake recipe, with a quick cream cheese frosting, and plastic Elmo rings as toppers so the kids could play with them after they were done eating their cupcakes.

Then that weekend, we had a small party at Chuck E Cheese, and I made my first ice cream cake ever.  It was a layer of chocolate cake, with a layer of homemade mint oreo ice cream ...

... and topped with vanilla buttercream.  And then I piped Elmo on top.  It was my first time piping a character, so it could have used some work.  But it was freehand!  And my first Elmo.

In any case, this started an obsession with making ice cream cakes (most of them Hello Kitty cakes).  Although now that we have two kids, ice cream cakes have fallen to the bottom of my to-do list when it comes to baking.  They just take so long!  And they are high maintenance, mainly because you have to constantly return the cake to the freezer several times in between piping, in order to keep the ice cream layer from melting.  Not to mention the complications with transporting an ice cream cake!

This is like the only picture I have of the inside of the cake, but you can get an idea of what it looked like.

This year Matthew requested Superman for his birthday, so stay tuned for some upcoming Superman goodies!